


I Don't Love You (But I Always Will)

by VillainsVindication



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Drug Use, F/M, Fractured Thoughts, His Last Vow, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Marriage, Season 3, Stream of Consciousness, The Sign of Three, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 00:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VillainsVindication/pseuds/VillainsVindication
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And he is fine.</p><p>It's all fine.</p><p>Right up until the moment that it isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Love You (But I Always Will)

**Author's Note:**

> So it's official, season three will have John meeting and marrying Mary, and as excited as I am to see the show I have to say that I am also a little heartbroken.
> 
> UPDATE: Just watched the episode and oh my god all the feels.

And he is fine.

It's all _fine_.

Right up until the moment that it isn't.

The creams and peaches and sky blues blur together, and he only keeps from swaying into a dead faint is out of the knowledge that Mycroft is watching from the pews.

He doesn't know why it matters.

Why this moment matters.

It was all said and done, gift-wrapped with a obnoxious pink bow when she first said yes.

Everything today is just a formality, really.

Tedious.

Stupid.

 _Boring_.

Sherlock knows and has known and always will know, sodden with the truth, chilled to the bones with it:

John is his friend.

Mary isn't going to change that, nothing can change that.

Nothing can change it.

But here he can feel it, even as he contains his theatrics he can feel the hope slip away from him like its a physical being.

Like a sliver of glass falling from his heart.

Shattered.

Which is ridiculous, Sherlock feels ridiculous.

 ~~Embarrassed~~.

 ~~Ashamed~~.

Why is he even here?

Best man, yes he is.

John's best man.

The best man for John.

John hasn't, doesn't, will never...

And Sherlock _knows_ , he knows, he knows this.

All his logic and rational thinking could not protect him from this. A lifetime of shamming emotions, did not pave a way for him to deal with the real thing when it happened.

He's... He...

 ~~I _don't_ love you~~.

God, it feels like he's been standing up here for absolute _hours._  Aren't they bloody done already? What more could they possibly have to say now that they can't say later?

They'll have their whole lives together after all.

Marriage.

John is getting married today.

Everyone starts clapping.

John has gotten married. In being proverbially tied down, he is also set free. Free from Sherlock.

Sherlock hasn't glanced towards the couple since this whole farce began, but he knows that John _is_ happy. He is.

Ecstatic.

Jubilant.

Alive.

For Sherlock, this is his most selfless moment, even more so than killing himself to save John's life.

His suicide wasn't a sacrifice. He didn't actually die after all. Beyond that it catered to his ego, grand, dramatic, exciting, indulgent. 

He was a martyr and a savior.

Here, he is none of those things.

This is silence, and penance, and pain. A pain that can't be seen with blood or conjured away as so much illusion.

This is as real as it gets.

He... He's...

 ~~Heartbroken~~.

He's gone and fallen for a straight man, the ultimate cliche. A man that he can never, never, never, _never_...

Sherlock blinks, suddenly aware that Mycroft has approached him. Everyone else is chasing after the couple as they whisk back down the aisle to the doors. Together now. Made as one.

But all of Mycroft's attention is on him.

His brother hands him a cigarette.

He accepts it.

Mycroft sighs and looks away, as if he's committed some sinful taboo.

Perhaps he has.

Admitting to emotion has ever been such between them.

Admitting _weakness_.

"I'll make your excuses for you."

"What?"

"Go, Sherlock, and don't... do anything stupid."

They are of one mind in picturing the glass vial filled with clear liquid hidden amongst Sherlock's things in 221B, harder to hide now with only his belongings filling the creaking spaces.

Sherlock turns away, leaving through the back of the church, and makes no promises.

No vows he can't keep.

The tobacco ash smolders before finally being snuffed out.

...

~~I won't think of you anymore.~~

~~But I won't think of you any less.~~


End file.
